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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25774846">bayonet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wondernoise/pseuds/wondernoise'>wondernoise</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Persona 5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Persona 5 Spoilers, Pre-Slash, Talking To Dead People</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:00:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,094</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25774846</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wondernoise/pseuds/wondernoise</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You are loved because you are convenient.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That’s what the voice in Akira’s head always whispers, anyway. When it was Arsene, late at night, it used to sound like encouragement. Or praise. </p>
<p>In Akechi’s voice, however, it’s always a judgement.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akechi Goro &amp; Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro &amp; Persona 5 Protagonist, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>92</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>bayonet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I finished Persona 5 and wrote this while working Akira's characterization out in my head. I'm still trying to finish Royal, so no spoilers, please! </p>
<p>This can be read as platonic or romantic -- it's just Akira talking to himself, but his feelings for Akechi are left fairly vague.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>You are loved because you are convenient.</em>
</p>
<p>That’s what the voice in Akira’s head always whispers, anyway. When it was Arsene, late at night, it used to sound like encouragement. Or praise. </p>
<p>
  <em>You can switch masks as quickly and easily as you need to so that you are loved and obeyed without being known. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It is a fine talent to hone. </em>
</p>
<p><em>Take pride in it</em>. </p>
<p>Akira could blame that particular voice on exhaustion, just like the other voices that remind him of everyone he couldn’t save and rip at any weakness he so much as hints at, rising up after hectic days and nights spent doing homework until the wee hours of the morning. As long as he didn’t pay any attention to Arsene’s actual words and thought of it as a sort of auditory hallucination, he could just fall asleep to the rising and falling tone of Arsene’s dramatics like the sway of a cradle or a boat on the water.</p>
<p>In Akechi’s voice, however, it’s always a judgement.</p>
<p>Akira’s back in his hometown again, in his old bed that somehow feels too small for him even though he doesn’t think he grew <em>that much</em> in the year he was gone. Arsene is gone and so are his people, though he still messages them when they reach out. Akechi is also gone<em>,</em> (probably) permanently, and only deigns to grace Akira with his presence on his most sleepless nights — and only now that Arsene has stopped filling that particular slot in his head.</p>
<p>Tonight happens to be one of those nights. It’s the middle of summer, and Akira’s spent the evening scrolling the group chat all night in lieu of attending a fireworks festival he missed because his parents still don’t <em>quite</em> trust him to run around on his own after his time in juvenile hall (even though he was proven innocent…). No trains back to Tokyo, apparently, at least until he graduates and runs off to college. </p>
<p>In the meantime, his teammates are trying to put together a plan to come over to visit him before the end of the summer. He keeps telling them there’s nothing to do, and they’ll get bored quickly, but they’re bound and determined to do it anyway. He’s mostly given up. If they miss him that badly, he’s not going to be the one to shut them down.</p>
<p><em>Do any of them even happen to know your favorite food?</em> Akechi asks, in the laughing voice that always makes Akira imagine what it would have been like to truly be on the other end of his gun.</p>
<p>“Ryuji knows my ramen order,” Akira tells the ceiling. He’s laying on his back with the covers kicked down to the edge of the bed. If he ignores Akechi as hard as he can, he can almost blame his sudden insomnia on the summer heat. </p>
<p><em>And did you pick it out on his recommendation?</em> Akechi sneers. Akira rolls over to face the opposite wall. <em>It wouldn’t be hard, you know,</em> Akechi continues anyway. <em>Your phone is within arm’s reach. You could message Ryuji and tell him about the foods you like and don’t like and that you really wish he’d stop adding things you hate to your ramen. Have a proper conversation with Futaba about the shows you watch all night, if you’re willing to admit that you don’t like Phoenix Rangers Neo Featherman. You could have told me—</em></p>
<p>Akira throws his pillow at Akechi. There’s no one there, obviously, so it just smacks into his bookshelf and falls to the floor. The third place soccer trophy he won in eighth grade lands on top of it. </p>
<p><em>Now, now, no need to get violent,</em> Akechi says lightly. Akira misses how he talked in his Black Mask costume. At least then he wasn’t so annoyingly condescending about his insults. <em>It’s not my fault that you’re so scared of people finding out who you really are and deciding they’d prefer the plastic doll you’re trying to pretend to be</em>.</p>
<p>“You’re one to talk,” Akira says, throwing an arm over his eyes. He doesn’t feel like getting out of bed just to get his pillow.</p>
<p><em>I’m also very dead,</em> Akechi reminds him, laughing. <em>Is that where you want to end up?</em></p>
<p>“Hey now, just because I keep my distance doesn’t mean I’m going to turn into some pistol-wielding serial murderer.” Akira regrets it as soon as he says it, even though he’s only talking to himself. It’s not something he’d say to Akechi’s face — it’s the kind of thought you simply don’t put a voice to unless you’re <em>trying </em>to burn a bridge. Or it’s three in the morning and some asshole ghost is keeping you up.</p>
<p>Hallucination Akechi doesn’t seem affected by Akira’s words at all (unfortunately), and simply brushes it off as the pitiful attempt to sway the topic that it was. <em>No, but there are plenty of other ways one’s life can spin out of control. Were all of those Palaces not proof enough of that?</em></p>
<p>“I don’t have a Palace,” Akira says. He pauses and adds, “...And I wouldn’t even if the Metaverse still existed.”</p>
<p><em>I certainly hope not,</em> Akechi says, <em>but I do recommend you endeavour to keep it that way. Your little teammates can’t just hop into your cognition to save you now. They have to do it the normal way, which means you have to let them.</em></p>
<p>Akira doesn’t respond to that.</p>
<p>There’s a long, considering silence. Just as Akira starts to hope they’re finally done, though, Akechi speaks up again. <em>Or are you afraid that you’ll take off your mask and find out that there isn’t anything under there after all?</em></p>
<p>“Again, I’m not you,” Akira mutters.</p>
<p><em>No,</em> Akechi says, sounding...pitying. Akira decides he hates it. <em>You’re not. I knew what was at my center. I just chose not to look at it. </em></p>
<p>The condescension finally gets to Akira, and he sits up with a start. He’s (still) alone in the room, but he snaps anyway, “I know what I am. What I <em>do with it</em> is up to <em>me</em>. If I figure it’d be best to tell everyone everything I’m thinking as soon as I think it, that’ll be my decision. Not yours or anyone else’s. <em>That’s</em> why we were different.”</p>
<p>Probably.</p>
<p>Akechi doesn’t say anything more. </p>
<p>The air still feels like Akira’s wading in a swimming pool, but somehow the conversation wore him out, so he chooses to take the silence for a detente and slips out of bed to grab his pillow.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm on Tumblr @ainaki and on Twitter @K41TOU! I'd love to talk about P5 so please feel free to bug me there.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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